Some Say It's Retribution
by AcaigaWrites
Summary: Horrified by the atrocities she performed all those years ago on Devastation Day, Valkyrie Cain finds herself beginning to finally cave. She supposes she deserves it. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. ::: Rated T for mentions of PTSD and consequential emotional states. Valduggery


A/N: Hey! Yeah, it's me! I disappeared for a while as it's my GCSE year right now and I was focusing on my education, but I am BACK, and planning to stay. So, uh, yeah! Have some Valduggery for your starving souls. We need more.

Some Say It's Retribution

She was tired. Oh, so tired.

Mentally exhausted. These days, she would count herself lucky if she could find a moment when her suffering mind wasn't occupied with the awful things she'd done five years ago. Terrible things, unimaginable things. Incomprehensible.

 _What could you have done, Valkyrie? What could you have done that could be so damn atrocious?_

Killed. Murdered. My sister. Hundreds, thousands even, all dead at her hands. It made her physically sick to her stomach, revolted with herself, and there was no denying it, no denying that it _had been her_ who had taken those lives, who had torn apart those families. There were times when this guilt, these feelings of selfish guilt and remorse and self-hatred felt so overpowering, so strong that they threatened to close their barbed hands around her throat and squeeze until she asphyxiated, digging in their jagged edges and scarring her as they went, cutting and searing -

Stop. Breathe.

Breathe. Sometimes she needed to just take a moment. Stop for a second, breathe, get over herself and carry on, because that was what she was supposed to do. Continue with Skulduggery, with the investigations and the missions against all who threatened the natural order of things as Darquesse - as she - had. It didn't matter how she felt. She should stop wallowing in self-pity, because she deserved this fate. Nobody had time for a world-killer.

Skulduggery did, or so she thought. He understood, at least, being Lord Vile. He had given in to his desire for vengeance, as she had given in to her agony and her temptations of relief. He understood her isolation. She had spent five years of her life away from her partner, away from her family. He'd called her, called her on her bad days and on her good days. Sometimes he pleaded for her to return.

Valkyrie sat up, her head in her trembling hands, and felt the nausea rising. Today wasn't so bad. Sometimes the dreams would make her feel so violently ill that she'd have no choice but to crawl to the bathroom. Today it was just the soul-crushing despair and anxiety that made her just want to crawl back beneath the covers to unconsciousness. But, who knew what horrors awaited her there?

She did. Of course she did.

With trembling fingers, she fumbled for her phone on the bedside table. The time read _03:52_ \- was it too late to call him? The idea was almost laughable - she'd never cared about that before. He was her best friend; she would just call and then be answered by that familiar velvet voice, and he'd just come over whenever she needed him, or he needed her.

"Skulduggery?" Her voice came out surprisingly strong, deceptively so, and she almost laughed at herself for the falseness. "Are you around?"

" _I'm at home. Are you alright? You sound on edge."_

Trust him to see right through her façade. "I'm... I'm okay. I just... I can't sleep." It was less of a statement, more of a request, and she knew he'd instantly understand the underlying meaning.

"On my way, then."

He arrived within minutes to Grimwood, and let himself in with the spare key that Valkyrie had given him. Valkyrie waited in the kitchen, donned in one of her numerous old jersey shirts and sweatpants, with Xena laying by the fire. She put the kettle on out of habit, even though Skulduggery couldn't drink and she wasn't planning to either, and guessed that she had just done it to fill the silence with some sort of noise. She was doing that more often.

Xena was first to welcome Skulduggery into the house, spiralling around his legs in fruitless attempts to trip him over and gain his attention. He met her in the kitchen, hanging his hat on the back of a chair and stooping to pet the demanding German Shepard, ruffling the fur between her large ears. "Good girl."

"Thanks," Valkyrie said, "for coming, I mean. I know it's stupidly early. Couldn't sleep at all."

"It's alright," Skulduggery replied, standing and brushing off the dog hairs his suit had picked up. "I know it isn't easy for you, coming back here. I rushed you into it, I know. After everything that's happened in the past few weeks, with Abyssinia and Lethe, and Smoke, and me too, I suppose..."

"You're back now. It doesn't matter."

"It does, to me at least. You're pale."

"I'm irish."

"Paler than usual," he amended, and walked over to the kettle. "And as I always say, tea solves all problems."

"I don't think you've ever said that."

"You may be right."

He readied a mug of hot tea complete with sugar and milk, as he had that day all those years ago after she had passed out after their fourth official meeting. The day her life had changed for the better, and for the worse. "The nightmares have been getting worse," she blurted, and his hand ceased stirring.

"I see. Alice?"

She nodded. "Not just her. Everything else too. Ghastly, Shudder... the people I killed too... Skulduggery, I'm tired."

"I know. I know you are. Time heals, but for now, all you can do is keep moving forward, never stopping. Who knows if you'll move again if you don't?"

She finished her tea, feeling her insides warm, and they retired up to Valkyrie's bedroom. In her quest to put her "mark" on Gordon's house she had bought some room decor, such as new curtains, duvet covers and pictures on the wall. Some of them had been taken down just moments after she had put them up, however, purely because she couldn't bring herself to look at them. Family pictures - Melissa, Desmond, Alice, and Stephanie. Stephanie. Both versions of that girl were dead now.

Valkyrie sat up against her headboard, legs folded, and Skulduggery sat on the edge of her bed, jacket put aside on her desk chair. The shaking had started again. "Do you want to talk about how you're feeling, or would you prefer to talk about something else?"

"I think... I think I'd like to talk about it." She breathed in deeply, trying to ignore the sickening feeling that was rising once more, and the way her throat shook as she just inhaled. "But I don't even know where to start."

Her face was warm. This didn't happen, especially around Skulduggery; he was the one person she'd never be embarrassed in front of or hide anything from. Then she understood. The tears welled, and started to silently spill. Skulduggery looked up at her sharply, and spoke to her calmly in that soothing voice of his.

"You don't have to talk. Valkyrie, you haven't cried in a while, have you. Maybe you need to. Maybe you need to let it out."

And let it out she did.

The tears came freely and quickly, and before she knew it she was crying; something she hadn't done in a very long time. Pent-up emotion burst free of the floodgates of her mind, and her chest heaved and her throat burned. Skulduggery rested a hand on her knee, rubbing his thumb in circles, but as much as she appreciated it it just wasn't enough.

 _Dead, died, deceased. Gone. Your fault._

 _You monster._

She gasped for air through a tight windpipe. Her breaths came quick and short, ragged and never bringing in enough oxygen. Panic was setting in, and she was freezing up. If she didn't calm herself down, she was going to pass out. Tears streamed and sobs tore out between torrents of half-breaths, and she dug her fingernails into her biceps until she drew blood, leaving crescent marks in her skin.

Skulduggery had moved, now sitting in front of her, his gloved hands on her shoulders and his empty eye sockets peering into her own, anchoring her in her turmoil. "It's okay. You're okay. I've got you. You're okay." She moved forwards, collapsing against him half in his lap, heaving breaths against his shirt. His arms encircled her, holding her closely, and she just cried, cried tears she'd been holding back for months, years, even, and cried for the people she'd lost and for the people she hadn't.

She sobbed for the bloodshed and the heartache and the people who had died at her hands. Valkyrie pressed herself harder against Skulduggery, feeling the emptiness within his shirt, areas giving way, but she didn't care, didn't care at all because he was _here. He was here with her._

Skulduggery's gloved hand stroked through her hair, and Valkyrie tightened her grip. She might've been hurting him, but he didn't seem to mind so she just held on tight as if he was all that was keeping her from falling. Her sobs gradually subsided until she was left with trickling tears that soaked into his shirt fabric.

"You're not alright," Skulduggery said softly, "but that's alright. I'm not pressuring you to be. Take all the time you need, sweetheart." Sweetheart. That was new. Somehow it felt right, though, and so she let it slide, and buried her tear-stained face into the shirt that she'd already ruined.

She was so exhausted, exhausted to the point that her energy was nearly gone, depleted by her crying. "No, I'm not. But I feel better now. I think... I think I'm done. Oh God, I'm a mess. I'm twenty-four years old and I'm an emotional mess."

Skulduggery loosened his grip on her, pulling back slightly so he could see her face properly. "Are you sure you're better now? I can stay if you'd like me to."

"Yeah. Stay," she said, wiping away her tears. A thought came to mind, a thought of a memory from around eight years ago, and it bought a smile to her face. "You could sing to me, though. Something different this time. Not "Me and Mrs Jones", though last time was nice."

He laughed softly, and let her off his lap to turn off the room light. A couple hours of sleep wouldn't hurt for her, and having rid her chest of all the heavier emotions she'd been feeling had really helped. Crying tired her out. Valkyrie crawled under the duvet, surrounded by her variety of pillows and heated blanket. Something had to give her warmth these days.

Skulduggery lay down next to her above the covers, his skull just about visible in the half-light from the open curtains. She shifted closer subconsciously, lifting an arm to tap his.

"Lemme use your arm as a pillow."

"You already have around 12 pillows."

"Not good enough. Arm."

He sighed in defeat, and allowed her to use his arm. "What song?"

"Hm?"

"You wanted me to sing to you. What song?"

"Hmm... _I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire_ , the one by the Ink something-or-others."

"Ink Spots," he grumbled, and she laughed quietly. And so be began to sing softly, his free hand tracing patterns on her shoulder. This was warmth and familiarity. Comfort. Home. She drifted to unconsciousness, enveloped by the velvet hum of his voice.


End file.
